Summer Solstice 2010

Today is the Summer Solstice and we have just about finished most of our planting, at least for the time being! It is difficult to get it all in when I am working, but I finished teaching for the year the first week of June, so we have been very busy trying to get all the annual vegetables planted - beans, squash, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs. We planted a huge bed of cilantro because Saul loves it, so we'll see how that goes!

This is only our second year and it is so exciting to see all the perennials that we planted last year coming up and spreading. The raspberries are multiplying rapidly as are the strawberries. The blackberries have grown quite a bit and we are seeing berries on them. The asparagus isn't doing very well - don't know quite what to do about that yet. Lots of potatoes came up from the bed last year and the safflowers and nasturtiums are happily coming in again as well. The Jerusalem artichokes are huge - we have a sort of forest of them!



This year we planted a LOT of rhubarb because it's actually a very pretty plant and it is a perennial. It seems to be very happy and it thriving.






In our front flower bed we have some of the rhubarb, edible flowers, blueberries, sweet potatoes, and potatoes mixed in with both perennial as well as annual flowers. It makes for an attractive and edible landscape!


Today is sort of stormy and rainy - my favorite time to work in the garden. It is hard to believe it is the longest day of the year in which we have the most hours of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere. Summer has officially begun!